


matchsticks and fingertips

by darkest_shades_of_red



Series: aftg one shots [3]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew at peace because he deserves it, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internal Monologue, Love, M/M, Scars, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Touching, but don't call it that they'll freak out, late night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:14:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkest_shades_of_red/pseuds/darkest_shades_of_red
Summary: Andrew's up at night, Neil wakes up, some Moments™ ensue. Very gentle, very thought-focussed, not a lot of spoken dialogue but lots of the unspoken kind.Inspired by: Not With Haste by Mumford&Sons
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: aftg one shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888267
Comments: 12
Kudos: 70
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	matchsticks and fingertips

**Author's Note:**

  * For [giucorreias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/giucorreias/gifts).



> This might be a little out of character for Andrew, my excuse is that everyone's being is a little altered at three in the morning. Make of this what you will, I hope you like it. Feedback in the comments (positive and negative) is greatly appreciated :)

Andrew struck the sixth match, watched it burn down. It smelled like smoke and phosphorus and sulphur. Thick air rose up through his nose into his brain, warm and used-up and strangely soothing. The flame crawled up along the stick, turning brown to black, straight to crooked, untouched to charred. Andrew liked it better that way, bent and destroyed and breakable with just the slightest touch of a fingertip. The flame had changed it, given it the opportunity to reshape itself, and to be honest, Andrew really didn’t know where he was going with his thoughts. The flame bit his finger and he blew it out, dropped it onto the windowsill to join the cemetery where its five predecessors lay.

Andrew struck the seventh match. Sleep hadn’t found him that night, and he was too tired to think much of anything. Sometimes he got like that, calm and slow, when the moon was on its way down from the sky again and all he heard was Neil, asleep and breathing, breathing, breathing. Steady. Unbreakable. Real.

Andrew struck the eighth match. It blazed up, sent a frenzy of yellow light over the wall and out of the window, scattering instantly. It was remarkable how much darkness a tiny flame like that ate up, with ease, claiming the air around it and shutting out the blackness as if it took its right to be there for granted. Andrew shook his head. What was he doing here at his window at three in the morning, wishing to be more like the tiny flame of a tiny match?

So, he struck the ninth match.

Neil stirred in his bed. A moment later, he asked, “What’re you doing?”

Andrew shrugged, trusting Neil to be watching him.

“That a cigarette?”

He shook his head and held up the tenth match. They’d both promised to quit smoking, and Andrew wasn’t going to go against his word for a stupid addiction. Neil got out of bed and walked over to him, bare feet barely disturbing the silence. Andrew sighed. “Back when I didn’t smoke and felt restless, I’d do this,” he struck the eleventh match, “and it would calm me down a bit.”

Neil hummed softly, staring out of the window into the blue-black darkness. “Did you sleep at all?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know. Thinking too much. Then I came here and it quieted down.”

“Wanna talk?”

Andrew shook his head and held up his hand, palm upwards. Neil contemplated it for a moment, then reached out to tangle his fingers with Andrew’s. Andrew dropped the eleventh match onto the window sill and watched the last curls of its smoke be blown away. It no longer surprised him that he didn’t want Neil to go away. That he wanted him to stay, even, right here with the cool breeze gently blowing his hair over his forehead and his eyes glinting in the dim light, alive, real. His hand in Andrew’s, whose chest felt on fire with something foreign and large, a flame that jumped right onto Neil’s cheekbones and the outlines of his face and danced in his hair, strangely tranquil in its flickers. He knew, then, that he understood something which he’d never understood before. Something of such terrifying magnitude that he wanted to hide his face in the junction between Neil’s shoulder and neck, breathe him in and never think about anything else again while scarred hands skipped over his back lightly, almost too light to be felt, just a wisp of wind moving thin fabric. Raising goosebumps all over his body.

Andrew let go of Neil’s hand, struck the twelfth match, watched its flame surge up, quiet down, flicker along. Something pricked his skin and he looked up to find Neil watching his face with great care in his tired eyes, so tender it would have scared Andrew if he didn’t feel it mirrored within himself. Neil was not his answer. Neil was his question. Can you feel again? Can you show it? Or can you build your walls? Can you hold them? Will I tear them down? Will you know it?

Andrew struck the thirteenth match, watched Neil step closer. If Andrew reached out now, he’d be able to touch the scar on Neil’s shoulder, or the ones all over his stomach, trace their lines through his shirt, just by memory, until his fingertips felt numb. Before he could make up his mind, Neil took the match from him, blew it out and the smoke into Andrew’s face, then dropped it onto the windowsill. His hand hovered next to Andrew’s face, aglow with white moonlight that washed away all its imperfections. “Yes,” Andrew said.

Neil touched his cheek, tucked a stray bit of hair behind his ear, traced his lip. He leaned closer and Andrew tipped his head up to keep looking into his eyes until they couldn’t focus anymore. Neil’s hair tickled his forehead. Neil’s breath walked across his lips and into his mouth. Neil’s nose bumped his cheek. Neil’s hand settled at the back of his head. Neil’s mouth was on his, a quiet kiss, one beat of his heart, then he was gone, whispering, “I’ll be right back.”

He walked out of the room and left only a picture of ruffled hair and sleepy eyes in Andrew’s mind. Andrew put his elbows onto the windowsill and closed his eyes. He could still feel Neil’s kiss on his lips. It seemed meaningful.

He struck the fourteenth match. The silvery ridges on his forearms cast dark shadows between themselves, made their smooth surface shine with an eerie glow. He didn’t feel anything, looking at them. Andrew dropped the match as Neil came back into the room, carrying a bundle of weirdly shaped things wrapped in plastic. At his expectant eyebrow raise, Andrew abandoned his spot at the window and walked over to sit on the bed next to him. The things were candles. Neil had brought candles. A twenty-pack of Renee’s tea lighter candles, to be exact. Neil ripped open the plastic and put one of them in Andrew’s hand, then stood up and went over to the window to pick up the matches. “Candles last longer.”

Andrew didn’t quite understand and just stared at Neil, half believing an answer would jump up out of his dark eyes or the bluish shadows on his cheeks. There was nothing there. Why would Neil need candles to last longer? Neil raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Why?”

Neil looked confused for a second and Andrew thought maybe he wasn’t making as much sense out loud as he was in his head, but then Neil answered. “Well, you said the matches calm you down, but they burn really quickly, so I thought that candles would be better, since they last longer. If… if that’s not what you want, I’ll put them back.”

Oh. Neil didn’t care about the candles. He thought Andrew might. Alright. Yes. Neil… cared about Andrew. They both knew that. That didn’t mean it was easy to think the words. Or their meaning. Why exactly were Andrew’s thoughts stuck on Neil bringing in some candles from the next room? He pinched his palm and nodded at Neil, who chucked the matchbox at him. Andrew struck the fifteenth match as Neil unpacked the candles, the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and then there were ten candles burning on Neil’s nightstand, the floor, the wardrobe. Orange and yellow flickers left warm traces on everything they touched, skipping over Neil’s skin and his hair. Andrew just had to reach out to him, put his hand on the back of Neil’s head where it was completely buried in soft curls, right above the spot he would usually push down when Neil was drowning in panic, to calm him down, take him back to reality. This time, it was Andrew who needed connection to reality, he sought for it in Neil’s face and found it in his eyes, staring at him, unrelentingly, paralyzing Andrew’s thoughts in a way that made his hair stand on end and his skin prickle. Amazingly, he didn’t feel threatened. Vulnerable, yes, but safe. Understood. Like the two of them were alone in this world, in their own unburstable bubble that nobody could see through. The inside of his chest grew warm with a thrill similar to the one he felt standing on the edge of a tall building – a thrill he’d learned to associate with Neil, kissing Neil, looking at Neil, touching Neil. He didn’t dare to think further, it was enough to see Neil sitting inches from him, still staring at him, never looking away. Enough. So much more than enough. If Neil asked him right now, asked him that damned question, asked him for anything, there was only one answer. Yes. He wanted to say it. Yes, yes, yes. I trust you. You know it more than I do. You feel it, so look at me and see I’m weak beneath all the words and hostile stares, look at me and see.

Neil kissed him. It didn’t feel like kissing Neil. Or rather, it didn’t feel like the usual kisses they shared. Not rushed, or leading to a goal; it was kissing as a form of communication. Of acceptance. Neil gently laid his hand on Andrew’s chest. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t all Andrew wanted to say, but he couldn’t say any more, since he didn’t have the words to explain even the smallest of the things he was feeling. Slowly, he leant back, taking Neil with him, until his head lay on Neil’s pillow. He’d never felt this safe before, even though his body was covered by another, despite his mind so far away. He made a decision, in that precise moment. It wasn’t his mouth speaking quicker than his thoughts, and it wasn’t hard to say the words. “Touch me.”

Neil stilled. “I am.”

“That’s not—” Andrew placed a kiss to his chin. He’d never done that before. It felt nice. He needed to articulate this better. “Not sexually. If it’s a yes, I’ll take off my shirt. You can touch me, if you want.”

Andrew knew that Neil understood what he wanted, because he knew that they both felt this overwhelming safety and privacy in their vulnerability, in Andrew’s vulnerability, and in their eyes locked and their bodies touching.

“Are you sure?” Neil asked.

Andrew exhaled. Was he sure? Yes. There was nothing to question here. “Yes.”

Neil straddled Andrew’s legs as Andrew took off his shirt, knees next to his hips, Andrew’s hands on his thighs. The sheets felt smooth and cool against Andrew’s bare skin. There was nothing heated about this, apart from the candles still burning away and drenching Neil in their lively light, as beautiful as he’d ever been, just that his edges seemed to have fallen away for some time, maybe the night had rounded them, the late hour, or maybe he’d purposefully withdrawn them, for Andrew’s sake or his own. It didn’t matter. Slowly, Neil leaned down to kiss Andrew, careful not to make contact. Andrew slid his hands up Neil’s thighs, underneath his shirt, resting on his lower back. “Go ahead,” he whispered.

Then there was a hand on his shoulder, skin-to-skin, warm and gentle. Andrew’s body tensed and his heart sank. Neil said his name, he opened his eyes, and yes, there he was, right here in his dorm bed with Neil, whom he trusted. Whose eyes he’d never seen so tender. Andrew grabbed his head and pulled him in for a short kiss. “It’s still a yes.”

So, Neil moved his fingers, just a little, then a little more, then he lifted his hand up and his fingers travelled to the side, onto Andrew’s arm, along his triceps, past his elbow, over the outside of his forearm, to his wrist, where they rested and then carefully encircled it, softly pulling it away from Neil’s head, laying it down onto the pillow next to Andrew’s. All the while Andrew was losing his mind. His entire body tingled, hot and cold, hot and cold, tiny pricks and tiny pulls here and there, everywhere, and thankfully Neil didn’t stop, found his way back up Andrew’s arm, along the inside this time. His fingers stumbled and skipped over the scars there, taking their time, feeling them out, tracing, mapping. Like he never wanted to forget their shapes. Nobody had ever touched Andrew like this. Nobody ever could have, firstly because Andrew wouldn’t have let them, and secondly because they weren’t Neil; for as Neil hovered over him, watched his fingers to memorise the sight of them on Andrew’s skin, on his scars, Andrew memorised likewise. He memorised this feeling of being seen at the most vulnerable he’d ever consciously let himself be seen, of Neil looking at him with his candle-bright eyes and fire-painted face that was just as open as Andrew himself felt. Neil’s hand moved on to his neck, up to his jaw, and as Andrew turned his head, he dropped a kiss right under his ear. Neil’s fingertips were slow as they wandered curiously over Andrew’s body, and it seemed to him like they slowed down everything else, too. Like they were slowing time and thought and everything else, slowing the tide that took every single person down with it. Andrew closed his eyes, took in the sensation of Neil’s fingertips all over him, barely even touching, chasing goosebumps everywhere they went. Every single ridge of Neil’s fingerprints felt safe, clean, right.

Andrew didn’t think he could’ve let this happen in another moment than this pocketful of stolen time, in between night and dawn when no-one was watching. He felt his body in a way he never had before, saw Neil in a light he never had, both literally and metaphorically. Most importantly, he knew he’d never been as safe as right here beneath Neil’s body and under his hands. He wished he could go back to his eleven-year-old self who sat alone at night, striking the forty-fifth matchstick by a window that was temporarily his, and give him this moment to hold on to when he couldn’t hold on to anything else.

He didn’t notice slipping off to sleep, and he also didn’t notice Neil placing a kiss on his cheek, blowing out the candles, and striking the nineteenth match at the window to watch it burn down before he dropped it, cleared the burnt sticks off the sill, closed the window, came back to bed and laid down next to Andrew. And maybe sleep was their saviour, because the warmth in their chests burned brighter than a million matches.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it :)
> 
> Songfics are always fun to write, so if you have any recommendations/requests feel free to drop it in the comments or, if you'd rather dm me, [here's](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/rubra-fuscissima) the link to my tumblr


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